Fire torches home of Black dog walker targeted by racist threats

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Just weeks after he began receiving racist threats delivered to his doorstep, both of dog walker Terry Williams’ parents had to be rescued from their home after a sudden fire this morning engulfed the building in flames.

Williams’ mother, who is nearly 80, had to be carried out of the building, and his father was rescued as he was trying to escape the blaze, witnesses said. The fire department received a call about the fire at 11:31 a.m. and arrived shortly thereafter.

“I tried to run through the fire to try to get my mom. They stopped me at the front door like, ‘You can’t get in, you can’t get in, we’re trying to get her out,'” said Williams, who was at City Hall when he began getting calls and rushed home. Williams’ nephew, who also lives in the building, was not home either.

Both his parents were admitted to the hospital, according to San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson Lt. Jonathan Baxter, one with serious injuries. Williams’ father was scheduled to be released the same day, Baxter later said, while his mother would be held for a day for observation.

Nearly an hour after the fire broke out, Williams was still standing outside with his three rottweilers, staring up at his childhood home as the dozen fire vehicles and 40 firefighters worked to control the blaze. He occasionally threw up his hands to his head in despair. At one point, a firefighter shook Williams’ hand and said, “We tried our best, man.”

Passersby and neighbors who had gathered at the scene came by to reassure and console the popular dog walker, offering him a place to stay or a meal — many already knew him. Williams, for his part, could be heard saying he felt like he let his family down.

Baxter said the fire department has opened an investigation into the fire, as it does with any fire that has no obvious cause, or involves rescues or injuries.

The house next door, which had a “No to racism” sign in the window, was slightly damaged but will be inhabitable later today, Baxter said, though three additional residents have been temporarily displaced. Williams’ home, however, was charred on the inside, and the four family members and three dogs who live there will be displaced for the foreseeable future.

The conflagration came just three weeks after Williams, who is Black, first received mail at his home featuring racist slurs: Two packages were sent to Williams containing a caricatured Golliwog-like doll with a noose around its neck. The first doll, received in late April, was scribbled with racist epithets — the n-word, “Sambo,” and other, archaic terms — and threatened the dog walker directly: There is a “target on your back,” a message on the doll read.

Williams then received a second, very similar doll in early May featuring Ku Klux Klan imagery and more threats: “We will continute [sic] to exterminate you n— slaves!” the doll read.

The police have not made any arrests in the investigation, which they originally classified as a hate crime. Williams also filed a report with the FBI after he received additional threats in the mail. Supervisor Dean Preston, who was also at the scene of the fire, has a resolution condemning the racist acts up for a vote at the Board of Supervisors this afternoon.

“How dare they, whoever they are, come and attack my elderly parents?” said Letisha Humphrey, Williams’ older sister, who rushed over to her family home from where she lives in Bayview. “I have a few other choice things I would love to say, but it might not be appropriate.”

“I thought I smelled somebody smoking, and then the next thing I know, the fire trucks were showing up,” said Daniel Sieberling, who is an old friend and neighbor of Williams. They live close enough that he can wave to the dog walker from his window. He wiped away tears as he described the scene: “It came up quick, the truck showed up quick, and they put it out pretty quick.”

Before he knew it, Seiberling saw the flames coming out of the windows, then Williams’ mother being carried out of the building. Another neighbor said she saw Williams’ father get slightly burned on his head as he attempted to leave the building.

More than two hours after the fire was reported, firefighters were still pulling charred debris out of the home.

Anti-Black crimes make up the lion’s share of hate crimes reported in California, according to the state attorney general’s report on hate crimes for 2022, the latest year for which data was available. Anti-Black incidents made up some 31 percent of all hate crimes reported in the state, and half of those were driven by racial animus. The number of anti-Black incidents grew some 27 percent from the previous year.

In the aftermath of both earlier incidents, Williams, 49, said he and his family were scared for their lives. His family has been in the neighborhood for decades and Williams was born and raised there; he runs a dog-walking business and is a regular at the park where he is known as the “Mayor of Alamo Square” by locals.

His elderly parents lived in the unit above him. But after Williams received the racist packages, he asked both of them to leave the city for their safety and said he has been keeping track of his nephew’s whereabouts, too.

More than 100 neighbors rallied around Williams in mid-May, saying they were appalled by the racist threats. The Rev. Amos Brown, the president of the local NAACP chapter, condemned the “bigotry, nooses, Black dolls and all the paraphernalia” that were still targeting Black people; Preston, who represents the area, donated $1,000 to a fundraiser in Williams’ name.

Lee Stafford, a nearby longtime resident, said “it’s hard to see it as a coincidence” that a fire would break out so soon after the neighborhood rallied to support Williams. Instead, he said, it seemed like an escalation.

The Alamo Square area, despite its proximity to the historically Black Fillmore, is now a majority white neighborhood: The census tracts immediately surrounding the park are about 54 percent white and just 10 percent Black. Citywide, Black residents comprise just under 6 percent of the population.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. The initial fundraiser to support the Williams family is here, and a new fundraiser to support them to rebuild after the fire is here.

More on Terry Williams

After devastating fire, SF dog walker and his family pick up the pieces 

SFPD investigates racist doll, threats at Black dog-walker’s home as hate crime

Dog walker receives another racist, threatening package in Alamo Square

Alamo Square neighbors rally to support Black dog walker after racist packages